


Till the Wheels Come Off

by hollycomb



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:07:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pavel and Hikaru are captured and interrogated. Even when their captors start taking them apart piece by piece, Pavel has hope, and also can't seem to stop talking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till the Wheels Come Off

Hikaru loses his leg about ten hours into the mission. It's his left leg, just above the knee, but his captors aren't done with him yet so they cauterize the wound and even give him an injection for the shock. They take Pavel away to question him while Hikaru slumps on the floor of their cell and listens to the pound of his own heartbeat, and when Pavel comes back he's missing part of his ear. Hikaru is glad they went easier on him, even while a wibbling three-year-old child who still lives in his heart wonders why they were nicer to Pavel.   
  
"This is going to be okay!" Pavel says, his eyes big and frantic and his shaking hands roaming schizophrenically over Hikaru, who just lies there with his cheek in a patch of mildew on the stone floor.   
  
"Hikaru! Yes! You know this, that you will be okay? McCoy can fix this no problem! Does it hurt? A stupid question, do not answer. But they can grow a new leg for you in, what? Three days? A week? A month at most? All they do is take a few cells from you and ah! New leg! Hikaru. Hikaru? Don't worry. You're worried, I can see this. Or sad. Yes, I am sad also. Your original leg was best. Also now you have this trauma. But soon we will be rescued and this will be a distant memory. You will tell your children about this day when you lost your leg while courageously withholding sensitive Federation information and they will lift up the ankle of your trousers in astonishment as they touch the skin on your perfectly functioning leg, the one that they have always known."  
  
"Pavel."  
  
"You know of Samson in Engineering? He lost both arms in that horrible accident last year? Now it is already a joke, both arms back, and he won that badminton tournament on Game Day, do you remember how we all laughed, because of the previous circumstances? Also, he does weight lifting, to make these new arms stronger than the old ones ever were. If anything now he appreciates arms more than most people. You will be this way with legs. Maybe you will take up running with me, eh? Maybe you will beat me in a race and we will joke that you want your other leg replaced now, too, because this new one is clearly so much better when it comes to running."  
  
"Pavel."  
  
"Yes?" Pavel leans over Hikaru, holding him from behind. Hikaru can feel Pavel's heart hammering against his shoulder.   
  
"Are you okay?"   
  
"Yes, yes, of course I am okay, I am fine, the rescue team will be here soon, these people will be punished--"   
  
"Your ear."  
  
"What? Oh, this? Is nothing, they used a knife, who cares, what does it take to replace an ear, half an hour, less time than making lenses for glasses."  
  
Hikaru is in a lot of pain. There's the pain from the cauterized wound, which is like being stung by a thousand wasps again and again, rolling waves of agony that have already made him sick to his stomach three times, and then there's the emotional pain, which is so crippling that it's as if he's never known what it was like to feel anything but hopeless anger, and then there's the pain of failure, because that's what this is, Failure in Action 101, and the pain of knowing that he's cost the world Pavel Chekov in the process of throwing his own life away. The fact that Pavel's spirit will eventually break and that Hikaru will probably witness it hurts more being butchered did.   
  
"What can I get for you?" Pavel is uncomfortable with silence. Hikaru knew that about him already. Pavel never stops talking, and has talked Hikaru to sleep on a number of occasions, when hanging out in Hikaru's room after their shifts. Hikaru always wakes up feeling guilty and wishing that Pavel hadn't left.  
  
"Let me get something to help you," Pavel says. He's worming around on the floor behind Hikaru rather than standing and walking or even crawling properly, maybe to make Hikaru feel better about having only one leg.   
  
"Let's see, let's see what we have here." Pavel tears through the pile of garbage in the back of the cell. Hikaru already looked through it and there's nothing useful there, but he lets Pavel search anyway. Hikaru is motionless against the floor, which is cold, but it feels good, because every inch of Hikaru's skin is on fire and he's soaked with sweat.   
  
"Ah, okay, hmm, here's something." Pavel slides back over to Hikaru holding a strip of what looks like it might have once been a carpet. He wraps it around Hikaru's shoulders, then wraps himself around Hikaru's shoulders, and leans there breathing kind of hard for a few seconds before he thinks of the next thing to say.  
  
"You will most definitely get some type of medal for this, Hikaru. Not that you care about such things. But it will be better than the one you got after Nero and the drill. Bigger, more shiny. Can you believe they gave me one? A medal, and I didn't even leave the ship! My father laughed when I told him. He said, 'a medal just for doing your job?' Of course I also did one other person's job, when I saved you. But that was easy, like playing a video game. You know I have no memory of that moment? I remember cheering when I caught you but before that I was in a trance. People said I ran and screamed, but to me it felt like I just appeared in that chair. I wonder if I will remember this, or if this is a trance. Because I am going to save you again, Hikaru. You must know this. If no one else saves you, I will."   
  
Pavel goes back to the pile of junk, humming to himself as he tears through it. He finds a pottery fragment that he uses to collect the water that is dripping at the back of the cell and brings it to Hikaru's lips, holding Hikaru's head in his lap while he drinks. He finds what looks like it was once part of an engine, a serrated piece of plastic, and uses it to comb Hikaru's matted hair. Then, beneath all of the garbage, he finds the vent.   
  
"Hikaru, this is good, very good sign, a way out, I can feel fresh air blowing!" Pavel is whispering all of this into Hikaru's ear with harsh excitement, the vent covered up again behind them.   
  
"Don't you dare go into that vent," Hikaru says, and his voice is so hoarse and horrible that Pavel hurries to collect more water for him.  
  
"Why should I not go into the vent? I think it is our best chance!"  
  
"Pavel, stop. Don't be stupid. If they catch you trying to escape-- or, the vent, it could lead into a vat of acid for all we know."  
  
"A vat of acid, ha! Why would they have this? For torture purposes? We are already residing in the torture sector, Hikaru. This vent leads away, to better things, I can smell it in the air that comes through it."   
  
"They could turn whatever runs through the vent on and you could be burned or something."   
  
"Burned? No, I don't think so. I have a good feeling about this. Allow me to trust my instincts like I did the last time I saved your life. I had operated transport machines like that only in practice, in class! And yet I knew I could do it. Also that I _had_ to do it, because if I did not no one else would, and you would die. Can't you understand this feeling? I am having it again now."   
  
"Yeah, but." Hikaru won't allow himself to say _Don't leave me_ , not even in the state he's in now. "When will you go?"  
  
"I will wait a little longer, just to make sure that no one else will come to the cell. If they come while I am gone, they might ask you how I escaped and they might hurt you when you won't tell them." Pavel kisses the rim of Hikaru's ear, and it feels like a drop of cold, clean water against the boiling rage of his body.   
  
"Just remember that whatever they take from you, I will get it back for you, and that I will save you, Hikaru, and that I have done it before, and that my heart will break if you doubt me."  
  
Pavel's voice isn't quite as strong as it was earlier. Somewhere outside their cell night is falling on this planet. Somewhere Kirk and the others are looking for them, if they haven't been blown to dust out in space, as their captors claimed when taunting them. Hikaru thinks he would feel it in his heart if the _Enterprise_ was destroyed, but maybe only if Pavel was aboard.  
  
The area around their cell has been silent for some time when Pavel prepares to leave. Hikaru has been in and out of consciousness, waking when Pavel tips cool water into his mouth. The water tastes of deteriorating stones and raw metals and drinking it makes Hikaru's thirst so much more vivid, not like there's a knife in his throat but like his throat _is_ a knife. His whole body feels like a still-cooling piece of dangerous shrapnel and he wants to protect Pavel from its ugliness, but Pavel hovers like Hikaru is an egg he's keeping warm under his feathers.   
  
"I will go now," Pavel whispers. His lips are floating over Hikaru's ear the way they have in his dreams. "I have left this water here for you, and here is your blanket if you get cold, and here are nine stones that I found in the back corner, which you can stack up into a tower if you get bored. See, it's like a game, the object being to make the tower very tall without allowing it to tip over. I will go and try to make a mental map of the vent and find you some food and medicine and a better blanket. Then we will take it from there."   
  
Pavel rolls Hikaru onto his back. Hikaru stares up at him and thinks of the one night when he did wake up to find Pavel still in his room, snoring in raspy little breaths and curled up as if he was trying to take up as little space as possible. Hikaru could have pulled him into his arms right then. The whole world would have changed instantly.   
  
"I'm sorry," Hikaru says. "This is my fault."   
  
"That is very far from true. I plotted the landing course. It was bad planning on my part. But we must learn not to dwell on our mistakes and we must also acknowledge the fact that we were trying our hardest! That is what I was told in my therapy sessions after I threw up on Mr. Spock's shoes because I was so nervous about what happened with his mother. Do you think they will force me to have more therapy after this? The questions they asked about my father! I stormed out three times. Maybe we can take our therapy together. That would not be too bad, I don't think. We could share a box of tissues and pretend to cry until the therapist is satisfied that we have made progress. Secretly we will be perfectly fine and in fact we will wear our gym clothes to these sessions so that we can run together directly afterward. And after running we can stop by the greenhouse and juice vegetables and fruits for power drinks like you are always telling me I should do after I run. I think, yes, that is exactly what we will do."  
  
Pavel seems reluctant to leave. Hikaru wonders if he's scared, though he's never seen Pavel scared before. Even when they were captured he seemed fine, and Hikaru is glad their captors didn't make Pavel watch the leg amputation. He tried not to scream loud enough to scare him, but eventually he forgot that plan and his name and everything except that screaming seemed like the right thing to do.  
  
"Keep this for good luck," Pavel says, and he rips the Starfleet insignia off of his shirt. When he presses it into Hikaru's hand like they're sealing a vow Hikaru is sure that he will never love anyone else, ever. The fact that he'll probably die by the end of the week doesn't belittle this realization at all.   
  
"Take mine," Hikaru says, but Pavel shakes his head.  
  
"You need both," Pavel says, and he swoops in to kiss Hikaru like it's going to be amazing, as if music should be swelling around them, but it's obvious from his wet fumbling lips that he's never kissed anyone before. Hikaru mouths at Pavel like he's water, just as graceless. He never wants it to end.  
  
Pavel shimmies over to the pile of trash, pulls up the vent, and disappears into the dark. Hikaru can hear him scrambling around for awhile, and the sound of it makes his eyes wet, Pavel's knees and palms clunking against the cold metal down there. The sounds get smaller and smaller and then there's just the thick, searing silence. Hikaru stares at the rocks Pavel left behind for entertainment purposes. He picks one up and puts it in his mouth, expecting it to taste like Pavel, and even when it only tastes like dirt he holds it on his tongue for awhile, Pavel's insignia squeezed into his palm. He starts to fade and spits the rock out before he can choke on it in his sleep.  
  
He wakes up terrified and he's going to start screaming afresh over the sight of his missing leg but then Pavel is there, replacing the vent cover and shoving the junk back over it. He's out of breath and he's got cuts and scrapes all over him, bleeding and raw, but he's also smiling.  
  
"You will never believe the treasures I found, Hikaru," he says. "Look at this, look -- bread!" He unrolls the front of his shirt and pulls out a dense-looking loaf.   
  
"Pavel," Hikaru says. He's not hungry, but there's been no sign that their captors will feed them so, sure, great, _bread_. "You're all torn up." Hikaru touches a bleeding cut on Pavel's cheek and wants to lick the blood from his fingers to get the taste of the rock out of mouth. He wants to replace every sensation he's experienced so far with the taste of Pavel.   
  
"The vent was a bit tight," Pavel says. "I am fine-- look, Hikaru, look at this!" He produces a clear bottle with a stopper. "Medicine!"  
  
"What sort of medicine?"   
  
"Smells like alcohol but sweeter. I tried it on one of my cuts and look-- oh, well, seems it has opened again, but the medicine closed it, before! Ah, and one more thing you will like." Pavel unrolls his shirt all the way and produces a crushed little flower. He makes a displeased sound, sets it on the floor of the cell, and administers a drop of the medicine. Hikaru watches as the flower returns to life, its petals unfurling and its stem plumping as delicate roots find their way into a crack between the rocks that pave the floor. Pavel laughs as the roots finds purchase and the flower stands upright, as if looking for the sun.  
  
"Jesus." Hikaru sits up as best he can, dabs a drop of the medicine onto his finger and touches it to a cut on the back of Pavel's hand. It heals instantly.   
  
"I saw very many things," Pavel says. "More things to steal, and the map in my head for the way out of here is forming already." He taps his temple. "I am very good at this, Hikaru. Navigating."  
  
"I know you are." Hikaru tries to use the medicine on another cut, but Pavel won't let him.   
  
"I think we could use it on your leg," Pavel says, whispering, grave. Hikaru shakes his head.   
  
"We'll save it for something more important."   
  
"But, Hikaru--"  
  
"McCoy is going to fix my leg, remember?" If they take something else from Pavel Hikaru will need to see it grow back right away, more than he could ever need his own limbs.   
  
Pavel puts the medicine away and they both eat a little bit of bread before hiding the rest. When Pavel sleeps, Hikaru rips the insignia from his shirt and slips it into Pavel's pocket. Pavel's lips move like he's talking to people in his dreams, and Hikaru manages to forget about his leg for a full three seconds.  
  
The nightmares arrive on huge black wings that close off everything good, and Hikaru wakes up screaming and scrabbling and feeling for his leg, and when he finds it there, intact, he sits and holds it for awhile, hardly noticing Pavel's chin on his shoulder.  
  
"I knew it would work," Pavel says. He's whispering and sounds ashamed. Hikaru can't seem to catch his breath, and has to fight a gut-churning urge to tear all of his skin off, because some part of him did want this but he knows what will happen next.  
  
They take the leg again, of course, and while Hikaru grits his teeth and watches it go he thinks it would have made more sense not to take the same leg but to do the other one this time, though he can't come up with a real reason. They take Pavel away, too, and at first Hikaru is again relieved that Pavel doesn't have to watch this piece of him get sliced off, but then they don't bring Pavel back. Hikaru finds the empty vial of medicine in the pile of junk and crushes the glass in his hand. Pavel used all of it on him while he slept, every drop. The flower that grew between the stones was trampled when Hikaru was dragged away, and he wants to believe, like Pavel believes, that things as fragile as this can be saved. He lies on the floor and stares at the crushed stem and the broken petals, and can't get the word _ruin_ out of his head. He listens for screams from other rooms but there's nothing.  
  
There's a knocking sound that night, and Hikaru's wound wasn't cauterized as well this time around so it hurts like hell to drag himself over to the vent, but by the time he gets there he knows it will be Pavel, looking up at him with amphibian eyes from the dark. He tears the vent cover away like it's suffocating Pavel, who hoists himself into the cell, shining with blood. At first Hikaru thinks it's just from crawling through the vent, then he sees the hand Pavel is hiding in his shirt, or the wrist, anyway, and the thick swamp of blood that suggests a missing hand. Pavel's smile is a million times worse than the creepiest thing Hikaru could ever imagine.  
  
"I found something," Pavel says, thrusting out his other hand. He sounds drunk. He's holding a wedge of cheese and he might be missing a tooth but Hikaru can't look at his face again, not yet.  
  
"Pavel." Hikaru takes the cheese like it's Pavel's beating heart and holds it with both hands. "What happened?"  
  
"Oh, Hikaru. Your leg. But it's alright. Of course I was stupid! I knew I was, look at me, making so many mistakes. And to think I might be pardoned because of my age. I don't want to be, can you understand this? I expect you to make a full complaint on my wasting of resources when we return to the ship. I should have listened to my superior officer! What was I thinking? Well, I will tell you, since you have every right to demand an explanation. I was doubting myself. Yes, it's true, is a bad habit I have in the middle of the night, I wake up and every confidence I have ever had is gone, and I think, Pavel, you fool, you egotistical child, you will be humbled soon, remember when Mr. Spock's mother died? You have a lack of humility that kills people, Pavel, and this is what I think, ah, but, Hikaru, how boring for you to hear about my anxiety, but I woke up thinking, what if I cannot save Hikaru? So I used the medicine thinking you were certainly more fit to save me and of course you should have two legs when you do so. However, today, my true feelings are renewed, and I have a better map of the vents, and I found this cheese, and I will save you, as I told you, I am doubtless about this now."  
  
Hikaru would cry if he wasn't so dehydrated. Pavel looks wretched. His hope might be edged with the beginnings of insanity but it's still sincere. They devour the cheese together and Hikaru props himself against the wall so that Pavel can doze on his chest.   
  
"Two more days," Pavel says while Hikaru pets him. "That is what I need to map the vents completely. I will find the way to the outside. We will fit you into them somehow. It is a good thing, really, that we are not eating much, because in two days you will be thin enough to fit, I think."  
  
Hikaru doesn't say that in two days they likely won't have two legs and two hands between them, because Pavel probably knows this already. Pavel thinks he will get out of here even if he has to do it with no hands and no legs. The fact that he believes this is like a bright but functionless light burning in the center of the cell, where the flower bloomed last night, and Hikaru isn't going to snuff it.   
  
"In the meantime, I will find more medicine," Pavel says. He roots around in his pocket. "I found this," he says, pulling out Hikaru's insignia.  
  
"Keep it," Hikaru says. "It's yours." He takes Pavel's from his own pocket and kisses it. Pavel smiles, with his mouth closed this time.   
  
"When you fell from the drill, you were certain you would die, yes?"  
  
"Yes." He had thought of Olsen and how he'd felt better than him for not dying.   
  
"And even when the Captain caught you, and he could not pull his chute, you thought then that you would die, too, yes?"  
  
"Actually. No." Hikaru had hope then. It was something about being around Kirk, even being around him while both of them were free falling toward a doomed planet, and then he heard Pavel's cocky voice over the communicator inside his helmet, saying something like _Almost, almost_. Hikaru believed him, that he was almost saved. This is different. It's not one of them falling and the other catching him like some kind of circus trick, everybody coming away clean, applause roaring. This is dirty and ugly and slow.   
  
"Well, think about how unreal that feeling was in hindsight, the certainty that you would die, and consider that I have seen more of this place than you and that while it is understandable that you should continue to feel pessimistic about this situation the introduction of some sound logic might suggest that this is mostly an emotional response."  
  
"Pavel."  
  
"Yes, Hikaru?" Pavel jumps to attention, eager for a request. There's a bloodstain on Hikaru's shirt and it warms Hikaru's heart because it's Pavel's and he'll have it when Pavel leaves.   
  
"Does your mouth hurt?" Hikaru asks. There's blood there, too, dried at the corner of his lips.  
  
"No, not at all."   
  
"Come here, then." Hikaru wants to do as much kissing of Pavel as possible before he dies. Even the taste of blood on his tongue is fantastic, coupled with the heat of Pavel's mouth. He holds Pavel with both arms while he still can.  
  
"How long have you loved me?" Pavel asks when he pulls back. He must have tasted it on Hikaru, or maybe Pavel is just this sure about everything.   
  
"Not long enough," Hikaru says. He's not sure when it started. Probably when he caught Pavel watching him practice fencing. Pavel was up on the running track in the rec center, and Hikaru was down in the center on the first floor, sparring with a dummy. He felt someone's eyes on him and looked up to see Pavel soaked with sweat and leaning on the railing that circles the track. They waved to each other. They were already friends, but that was the first time Hikaru wanted to take a shower with Pavel, and to rub a towel through his curls when they were clean. That's how his love for Pavel has been so far. He wants the sex, of course he wants the sex, but he daydreams about Pavel's shirts folded in a drawer beside his and Pavel's boots next to his at the door and Pavel helping him kneel down to tend his garden when they're old and Hikaru's knees are bad. He might have doomed himself this way, wanting too many simple things and doing nothing about it. He's led the classic life of someone who will die young and leave the important things unfinished.  
  
"Nonsense," Pavel says. He relaxes onto Hikaru's chest again, cradling his injured arm, which is still hidden in his shirt. "Even one second is enough. If it is real love."   
  
"Real love."  
  
"Yes. The earnest kind. Though that is a poor description. I don't have the words in English for this kind of abstract thing. Maybe I could explain it to you with a Russian folk tale."  
  
"God, yes, please, tell me a Russian folk tale." Hikaru wraps his arms around Pavel, taking care not to disturb the worst of his cuts. He kisses and then licks at one on Pavel's forehead, like he can clean his wounded mate.   
  
"Let me think of a good one." Pavel rubs his chin. "One you have not heard before. Most old stories about love are from Russia and people just don't know this. Let's see, let's see -- ah! Okay, Hikaru, listen." Pavel reaches back to cup Hikaru's face, and he leaves his hand there as he talks, his eyes unfocused and his head resting on Hikaru's shoulder.   
  
"Once in Russia, after the Vikings but before the Czars, there was a small but prosperous kingdom and the King and Queen had only one child, a daughter. She was a sickly child and very precious as their only heir, so she was kept locked up in her room where her doctors could tend to her all day and all night. She had no friends and knew no other children except a slave boy who had been brought from another kingdom that was conquered by her father's. The slave boy pitied the girl, who was only allowed to eat flavorless porridge because of her condition. One day he brought her a sugared walnut, because with his child's logic he thought that it might maker her feel better, because eating something sweet always made _him_ happy. But, Hikaru, it _did_ make her better, because the boy gave it to her out of love and kindness. The next day, the doctors were all talking about how rosy the girl's cheeks had become and good her health seemed. Encouraged, the boy gave her two sugared walnuts that day, and the girl's improvement doubled. She even began to talk, which she had not done in many years, and in their secret whisperings the girl and the boy found that they quite liked each other's company.  
  
"When the boy ran out of sugared walnuts to bring her, he found other things. He brought the girl polished rocks from the river and bits of ribbon from the clothier's workroom and tiny flowers he found growing in crevices inside the castle's walls. The girl was not only delighted by everything the boy brought her, she was healed a bit more by each item, until finally she emerged from her sick bed, a beautiful young woman, as healthy as any maiden in the land. Her parents were very excited about this development, not because they truly loved their daughter, for because of her isolation they barely knew her, but because she would now secure a profitable marriage. The girl despaired at their planning, because she was in love with the slave boy, who by now had become a young man and was no longer allowed to serve inside the girl's chambers. Instead he had to sneak to her window at night to bring her the simple gifts that sustained her. One day, while doing this, he was caught by the palace guards and the love of the princess and the slave was discovered.  
  
"The royal family was furious. Their daughter was making a mockery of their household by entertaining the attentions of a slave! They arrested the slave and imprisoned him in the most nefarious dungeon in the kingdom, and, oh, Hikaru, he was treated so horribly, I will not go into detail, I will only say that Russian folk tales, they are very dark! Meanwhile, the girl's health rapidly began to fade, and the more she wept and wept for the boy who had been taken from her the weaker her body became. There was no hope for either of them -- the boy would soon be dead from his injuries and the girl from her heartbreak. But, ah, wait! One of the doctors, not the most clever but the purest of heart, had noticed the boy's gifts over the years and how they cheered and healed the girl. He decided that this was the kind of true love spoken about in tales that were old even then, and he knew it was powerful enough to bring people back from the verge of death. He could not let this rare thing go to waste, so he used his power in the kingdom to sneak into the dungeon and free the boy, but the boy was so broken that even this doctor did not know how to fix him.  
  
"The doctor was so moved by the sight of the ruined boy, who had once been beautiful and strong, that he dropped to the floor and wept. He did not want to leave the boy to his suffering and thought it might comfort him to die in the arms of the girl he loved, but he was afraid that if the girl saw the boy in this condition she would turn away in horror and that it would bring both of them nothing but pain. But despite his hesitation, the doctor lifted the boy into his arms and carried him out of the dungeon, because after all the boy had loved the girl when she was a skeleton under her bedsheets, and he hoped the girl would remember this. So the doctor found the girl, and he continued to weep as he presented her barely recognizable love – if I were telling the real Russian version I would be listing all of his injuries, but I will spare you that – and the girl cried for what had been done, but she took her broken boy into her arms and held him, trying to comfort him. Though the boy had barely been cognizant before now, when he was in the arms of the girl he opened his eyes, and as they beheld each other, a miracle happened! The girl's sickness, which she had suffered with terribly since she lost her boy, was cured, and her cheeks were rosy again, her breaths no longer labored. And the boy healed more and more for every second he lingered in her embrace, until he was strong enough to lift the girl into his arms.  
  
"The doctor ran for the torturer from the dungeon and the guards who had arrested the boy and the King who had commanded them to arrest him and he said to all of them, 'Look, look, is this not the boy you condemned to die suffering?' They recognized him and all of them dropped to their knees in reverence of his magic recovery and the girl's renewed health, even the King! Because who could deny that true love had worked a miracle? So the boy and girl were elected King and Queen of the land, but they were humble and not interested in ruling, so they thanked the citizens just the same and left to live in a modest cottage, where they had many beloved children and lived to old age."  
  
Hikaru thinks of all the nights he fell asleep while Pavel talked like this, though before it was always about a disagreement he'd had with Scotty over some theory of time travel or a judgmental comment from a professor at the Academy that was still bothering him. He wants to ask Pavel if he just made that story up to suit their situation, but it doesn't really matter if he did.   
  
"Don't you feel this way, too, that we are like this?" For a moment Pavel looks just as untouched as he did when Hikaru first saw him, despite the cuts.   
  
"If you find a way out when you're in those vents, I want you to go," Hikaru says. "Go and find help, send someone back for me. Go while you've still got two feet."  
  
"I can't go. No, don't be ridiculous. Hikaru, you've lost more blood than I have, you're not thinking straight. Let me do the planning."  
  
"Ha. Alright, well. You're the genius."   
  
"You still doubt me! We'll see, Hikaru, we'll see who's right in the end."  
  
"Yeah, I guess we will."  
  
He kisses Pavel goodbye and watches him shimmy back down into the vent. The receding sounds are different now as Pavel crawls away with only one hand. Too late, Hikaru realizes that they might take the other hand tomorrow, and that would mean never seeing Pavel again.   
  
When they come to Hikaru's cell the next day, they ask the same questions, and Hikaru gives the same answers: _Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck your mother, too_. They take his hand one finger at a time and he sobs at the thought of Pavel going through this the day before. He had stupidly assumed that they just lobbed the whole hand off in one blow.  
  
When Pavel comes again that night Hikaru realizes that he never really expected him not to. Maybe there is something to his optimism after all. Then Pavel's remaining hand crashes against the vent and Hikaru pulls it away for him, and sees what they've taken this time.  
  
"I'm afraid all I've brought you today is good news," Pavel says, as if nothing is out of order here. He's kneeling near the vent, where Hikaru set him before falling backward in shock.  
  
There's a cloth wrapped around the wrist with the missing hand -- Hikaru has hidden his in a similar fashion, to spare Pavel the sight -- and another cloth wound around Pavel's head, covering the place where his eyes should be.   
  
"Pavel." It can't be real, and Hikaru wants to beat his head against the floor to shake off the nightmare. No technology or alien magic could recreate Pavel's eyes. Hikaru tries to say something comforting, but his mouth is dry and he's forgotten how to speak.   
  
"Hikaru, come here," Pavel says, reaching blindly into the space between them. Hikaru scoots forward and takes Pavel's remaining hand with his own. He brings Pavel's palm to his cheek, and Pavel smiles.   
  
"Don't worry," he says. "I lost consciousness after the first one. They didn't take yours, did they?" He feels Hikaru's face until he finds his eyelashes, and he lets up one hiccuped sob of relief, nodding. "Good," he says. He touches Hikaru's nose and lips and ears as if consulting a map, then clears his throat. "I suppose they took mine to stop my wandering. I think they are getting suspicious. But the good news is this: I have found a way out! Unfortunately, this won't mean much until I complete the last phase of my plan. It will be difficult without being able to see, but not impossible. I have a very good internal sense of direction, as you know. And look, both legs still here! Not that I am boasting about this, but trust me, they will be needed. Hikaru, are you cold? You're shivering, where is your blanket? I'm sorry I never found a better one for you, but soon it won't matter. Let me feel your chest -- ah, yes, good, there are your ribs starting to come through. I think you will fit in the vent tomorrow, no problem."  
  
Hikaru doesn't say anything about the fact that Pavel has gone completely mad. He doesn't even think anything about it. He just holds Pavel against him, feeling as if he's gone blind himself. A light has been put out forever.  
  
"I hope all this shivering does not mean that you're sick," Pavel says. He's clutching at Hikaru much more tightly than he did before. "Probably we will both have infections when we get back to the ship. It is frustrating to think that we may have to spend three or four weeks in recovery after all of this, but in the scheme of the five-year mission I suppose it's not too much time to miss. And at least we will be together while we recover, _da_?" Pavel's stops clutching for a moment and lets his hand wander down over Hikaru's arm. He stops at the wrist when he feels the cloth. Hikaru squeezes Pavel's waist with his other hand, reminding him that it's still there, as if he actually believes that it matters. Maybe as long as he can hold Pavel, it does.  
  
"Won't you talk to me?" Pavel asks, his voice suddenly very small.  
  
"Sorry," Hikaru says. "I wish I could talk like you do. I love it when you talk to me. I used to be afraid that you were insulted when I fell asleep while you talked late at night, but I loved having your voice be the last thing I heard. It would blend into my dreams, like you were this calm sky over everything in my subconscious, and I wanted it every night, you in bed with me, talking until I fell asleep."  
  
Pavel smiles, and it should look eerie, with blood crusted under his jaw, but it's soft and sweet and for a moment Hikaru actually thinks Pavel might still be sane. He drags himself over to the water, helps Pavel drink and tries to clean the dried blood from his skin, but he can't rub hard enough without opening cuts from the vent.   
  
"We will be so revered after surviving this," Pavel says. "Not that I crave such things. But we will be."  
  
"They'll give us a fucking . . . banquet dinner or something."  
  
"And we will be so embarrassed by it!"  
  
"Kirk will cry."  
  
"Ha! Yes! Maybe while he is in an impressionable mood we could suggest that we be allowed to use his quarters while recovering. It has a jacuzzi tub, Hikaru. Big enough for six people! That is the rumor, anyway."  
  
There's still a little bit of bread left, stale enough now to need to be softened with water before they can chew it. They eat it together in silence, Hikaru propped in the corner and Pavel crouching beside him, looking ready to spring into action, but when he finishes eating he leans against Hikaru's chest and sleeps for awhile. Hikaru wonders what it's like to sleep without having to close your eyes. He doesn't really think Kirk would cry if they were returned safely to the ship, not even in private, but he'll cry when they're declared dead.   
  
"I love you," Hikaru says once he's helped Pavel back into the vent, Pavel crouched inside it with his face tipped up to Hikaru's.   
  
"Don't say so like you'll never see me again," Pavel says.   
  
So Hikaru just kisses him like he won't. He feels like he's drinking from the deep well of pain that Pavel is keeping secret from him, and he wants it, gulps it down and leaves Pavel breathless and grinning.   
  
"I can still see you," Pavel whispers. "It's amazing."  
  
The next day, they come for Hikaru's eyes. He can't let his navigator fly blind, so he babbles out some fake coordinates before the knife can touch him. His interrogators seem pleased, and they back off, assuring him that if he continues to cooperate, he will be healed without having to steal from their medicines. Hikaru has just a couple of hours before they realize he's lied about the coordinates, which means this is probably the last day of his life, but he's still got his eyes, and he'll be able to see Pavel when he comes. He wants to see him no matter what they've done to him now. Like in the story. He'll just keep taking whatever is left of Pavel into his arms until he doesn't have arms anymore.  
  
He's anxious for Pavel to arrive before the interrogators realize what he's done, and when he finally hears the sound of Pavel approaching in the vent he's relieved to find it no clumsier than it was the day before. He still hears two knees clambering and one hand slapping against the metal as Pavel pulls himself closer. Hikaru flings the vent cover away and waits, his heart hammering, to see what has been done to Pavel this time.   
  
Pavel's face appears first, just as it was the day before, the cloth wrapped around his head, less blood on it today. He's still got his nose and his chapped lips, his left ear and most of the right. He's even got his curls, and there's the hand, which Hikaru takes to help him out, and what remains of his other arm, everything after the wrist. His skin is sliced up from the vent but otherwise his midsection looks healthy, and finally there are his two perfect runner's legs, his two feet.   
  
"You used the same strategy I did," Hikaru says, smiling and feeling real hope for the first time since they were captured. "They'll figure out we lied soon, so we'd better get moving. Are you ready?"  
  
Pavel nods. He's smiling, but the corners of his lips are shaking.   
  
"Are -- what's wrong?" Hikaru asks, because something definitely is. He feels as if the walls of the room are solidifying around them irreversibly, or maybe like the world beyond this cell is crumbling to nothing, no longer accessible.   
  
Pavel points to his mouth and then shakes his head. He shrugs. It takes Hikaru a long time to catch on, or maybe just a few seconds, but they feel like a desert he's got to cross on foot.   
  
So they took Pavel's tongue.   
  
"Okay," Hikaru says, shaking his head, though Pavel can't see this. "Okay, fine, that will be an easy one to regrow, right?"  
  
Pavel nods eagerly, his shaky smile going still for a moment.   
  
"Right. Right so. You lead the way, right? Did you finish, um, the last phase of your plan?"   
  
Pavel nods again, and catapults himself back into the vent before gesturing for Hikaru to follow. Hikaru doesn't know how to live without Pavel's voice, not even like this, as a crawling half-corpse. He doesn't know how to live in a world where someone could cut Pavel's tongue out. So it's time to leave this one. There are other worlds and he's going to see them with Pavel. Determination seeps into him like thick, dark oil, making him grit his teeth as the narrow walls of the vent tear at his clothes and then his skin. Ahead, Pavel moves slow enough for Hikaru to keep up, but Hikaru begins to pick up speed after he gets the hang of it, pulling himself forward with his hand and then pushing with his knee. He takes the turns that Pavel makes blind and knows that they're leading to something good. He's done underestimating Pavel, and the team from the ship that's surely searching for them, and the miracles that can't be cut out of the body. He can smell the fresh air before he feels it on his face. When they come to the vent that leads outdoors, to the night sky and the stars, Hikaru feels like they're already saved.  
  
Pavel removes the vent cover and tosses it out into the night. He's panting for breath through his nose, keeping his mouth shut tightly. He flattens himself against the side of the vent and gestures for Hikaru to crawl forward. At first, Hikaru thinks he just wants a celebratory kiss, but then Pavel points at the drop off and makes a motion with his hands to ask Hikaru how steep it is. Right: he found this after he lost his eyes.   
  
"The fall won't kill you," Hikaru says, looking down over the edge. "But you might break your leg." It's about ten feet to the ground, which is just a mossy hillside, unguarded as far as he can see. There's a forest not fifty feet from the building, and the whole landscape is quiet except for the high-pitched whine of the spiderhoppers who live in the ercu trees on this planet. Hikaru could weep for the sight of the leaves and the grass.   
  
Hikaru lowers Pavel as much as he can before dropping him, and winces when he hears the _snap_ of a bone. Pavel grabs his right ankle and makes a pained, muffled noise, then rolls out of the way so Hikaru can jump down. It's less of a jump and more of a splat, but Hikaru is fortunate enough to land on his ruined leg, sparing the other.   
  
"How bad is it?" he asks, crawling over to Pavel, who is trying to get up. Pavel just shakes his head and reaches into the back pocket of his pants. He pulls out a little bottle of liquid, turns it around between his fingers several times and sighs with what appears to be relief when he feels no cracks in the glass. He thrusts it toward Hikaru.  
  
"What?" Hikaru says. "What is it? Medicine?"  
  
Pavel nods.  
  
"Then drink it!" Hikaru says, pushing it back toward him. "Or pour it on your eyes."  
  
Pavel shakes his head and tries to give it to Hikaru again, pointing to Hikaru's mouth.   
  
"You're crazy," Hikaru says. "What have I lost, a hand and a leg? You were right before, those things can be regrown and rehabilitated. Pavel, your eyes."   
  
Again, Pavel shakes his head, his breath coming faster as his frustration builds. He starts casting around on the ground, looking for something, and when Hikaru realizes what it is he helps. When he finds a stick sharp and strong enough to write with, he presses it into Pavel's hand.  
  
"Write it here," Hikaru says, brushing away dried leaves to make a flat plane of dirt for Pavel to etch letters into. He writes:  
  
CAN'T CARRY YOU  
NOT STRONG ENOUGH  
  
"But." Hikaru shakes his head. He looks back up at the stronghold they've escaped from. It's only a matter of time before a search party is sent out. "But I could limp."   
  
There's a weak cry in the back of Pavel's throat as he again holds the medicine out for Hikaru to take. They'll have to be fast. Hikaru could run with Pavel on his back, especially if the medicine restores his energy as well as his leg.   
  
"Then go and leave me here," Hikaru says, though he knows Pavel won't listen. Pavel uncorks the medicine and makes another helpless sound that claws at Hikaru's heart. He's begging.  
  
Hikaru drinks it in one gulp, telling himself that they'll conquer this land and steal medicine that will restore Pavel's sight. It's already down his throat before he considers the fact that Starfleet isn't generally in the business of conquering things.  
  
It works the way they both knew it would. Alarms begin sounding in the building, the sound blaring out from the open vent. Hikaru stands on two legs, lifts Pavel onto his back with two hands, and runs into the woods like a freed animal, glad to have no time to think about what he's done.  
  
*  
  
Their signals are tracked by the _Enterprise_ the following morning, and they are discovered at the base of a hill in the woods, Hikaru curled around Pavel. There is some difficulty extracting Pavel from Hikaru's arms once they're beamed aboard the ship. Both of them are taken to sick bay, and Hikaru's miraculously healthy condition is studied while arrangements are made for a shuttle that will take Pavel to a space station where he can board a ship that's bound for Earth and receive extensive medical care. Bizarrely, McCoy volunteers to go with him as his doctor.   
  
"I'm going with them," Hikaru says when Kirk comes to visit him. Kirk is quiet for a moment. He seems a lot older than he did when Hikaru last saw him, which was five days ago. Hikaru feels at least sixty years older himself.  
  
"I'd have to give a reason for granting you a hiatus in your service," Kirk says.   
  
"I'm mentally compromised."   
  
"They'll say you could be treated for that here on the ship."   
  
"Then I quit." He pretends that saying this is easy.   
  
"Hikaru." Kirk rubs his eyes. "Alright, okay. I'll make it work."  
  
Hikaru is allowed to sleep with Pavel on the journey back to Earth, in a narrow bed across from McCoy's in the compartment the three of them share. There is one little window on space, but McCoy insists on keeping the shade drawn all the time. Pavel has proper bandages over his wrist and around his head now, neat and clean. He doesn't use the notebook and pen provided for communication and won't let Hikaru kiss his closed lips, but he does hide against Hikaru's chest at night, his skin scalding hot and his clothes soaked with sweat, and he does listen when McCoy and Hikaru take turns reading to him. Still, Hikaru worries that something is lost for good.   
  
It's late spring on Earth, everything coated with a film of pollen. They're in Atlanta, at the research university where McCoy got his MD. McCoy says it's the best in the universe.   
  
"Will he sound different?" Hikaru asks while Pavel has blood taken in another room. He's in an office that McCoy has taken over, his notes and books scattered everywhere. Hikaru is pretty sure McCoy hasn't slept since they reached Earth. Kirk once told McCoy that he'd hurt Pavel's feelings after some joke about his age, and McCoy rolled his eyes, but since then he's looked after Pavel from afar, and once sent him iron supplements with a note that said he looked pale. Hikaru had expected Pavel to be insulted, but he smiled at the note and swallowed an iron pill every morning with his orange juice.  
  
"Sound different?" McCoy looks up from his notes with a scowl. "No. Don't you know anything about anatomy? It's the same tongue -- you know we use a technology akin to time travel to age the cells to seventeen years." He grins, looking a little maniacal. "So he can tell you his tongue has traveled through time, that it's come back from the future, and he'll do it in that same grating accent everyone is so found of, don't worry. It's muscle memory, the way we use our tongue to form words." McCoy stares at Hikaru like he's the dumbest person McCoy has ever met.   
  
"I know, I just -- what about his eyes?"  
  
"What about them? Connecting them will be a bitch, that will be the longest stage of the surgery, and we might have to go back in there, tweak some things. I'm not making any promises about the eyes. But, hell. They'll _look_ the same, if that's what you're worried about."  
  
"Of course that's not what I'm worried about." Yes, it is.  
  
"What are you two," McCoy asks, muttering and turning back to his papers, "In love?"  
  
Hikaru thinks of the doctor in Pavel's story. McCoy is dragging Pavel out of the dungeon and hoping Hikaru will still want to look at him when he brings him up into the light of day.  
  
"Yeah," Hikaru says.   
  
" _Yeah_?" McCoy scowls. "What the hell kind of answer is that?"  
  
Pavel's surgery is seven hours long. Hikaru sits in the waiting room and chews a lot of gum, his left leg bouncing until an old lady gives him a hateful look for the sound the heel of his boot makes as it slaps against the linoleum floor. He goes for a walk. It's the middle of April and already eighty-five degrees outside. He checks out the local flora and fauna: petunias and dogwood trees, fat rock pigeons. He thinks of Pavel coming out of the surgery haze and trying to focus his eyes, the way the world will look, or maybe when he cracks open his brand new eyelids he won't see anything. In the prison on Laz Pavel said he could see Hikaru, and that it was amazing. Looking back, he'd seemed to be speaking kind of literally. Of course, the evals on Pavel's mental state are still forthcoming.   
  
Hikaru hasn't been to any therapy sessions yet. He's thinking about quitting Starfleet and starting a farm or something. But only if Pavel would come with him.   
  
With thirty minutes left in Pavel's surgery, Hikaru returns to the waiting room. It's empty, which seems a terrible omen. He paces around, irritated by the sunlight through the window on the left wall and wondering if the nurse at the desk would give him a dirty look if he shut the blinds. He sits and thinks about the couple in Pavel's folk tale living out their lives in their modest cottage and the man waking up one night, furious.  
  
"You don't know how I suffered," he would say. "You never even asked me about it. We don't talk about it at all, what I went through for you."   
  
"You've never brought it up!" his wife would say, horrified, holding the blankets up over her chest. "I thought it was a bad memory, I thought you wanted to forget the whole thing! And I suffered, too, remember? I was wasting away out of misery while we were separated."  
  
"Oh, please," the man would say, and the woman would cry, but she would know that he was right, that she had gotten off easy.  
  
Hikaru is awakened by McCoy when night has fallen outside and there's an orange street lamp glow through the window. He feels like he's fallen asleep on duty and crashed the ship, and his stomach drops when he stands.  
  
"Took a little longer than we expected." McCoy is winded and ashen.   
  
"And he -- the -- it went --"  
  
"Hand and tongue fully functional, won't know about the eyes for another couple of hours. Oh, and we fixed the ear, and the scrapes, he shouldn't have any scarring."   
  
Something about McCoy calling it _the_ ear instead of _Pavel's_ is insulting, but Hikaru embraces him. He's never really thought about how big McCoy is before, never having attempted to hug him. McCoy pats Hikaru's back.   
  
"Thought you might withhold the inappropriate physical affection until after you got the verdict on his eyes."  
  
"Is he talking?"   
  
"Non-fucking-stop, as usual."  
  
"Then I need, I need --"  
  
"C'mon, you can see him."  
  
Pavel is sitting up and talking to a specialist when Hikaru comes to the door. He's got fresh bandages over his eyes, and he's touching his new hand absently, poking at the knuckles. There's a blanket around his waist and a band-aid on his ear. He turns when Hikaru walks in, and that's when Hikaru realizes that he was somehow expecting the eyes to be back, too, never mind what McCoy said.   
  
"I've been saving your name," Pavel says as Hikaru walks to the bed. "Here it is, the first time I will say it with this tongue." He pauses for effect, and Hikaru reaches into Pavel's lap to take both of his hands.   
  
"Hikaru," Pavel says, as if they've met unexpectedly in the hallway. He sounds the same, like McCoy promised, Russian-accented and vaguely proud of himself.   
  
"How'd you know it was me?"   
  
"You displace a particular amount of air."  
  
Hikaru begins kissing Pavel's new hand, making sure all the delicate bones are in place. McCoy ignores this and hovers, taking readings with his tricorder.   
  
"How do your eyes feel?" Hikaru asks. Pavel shrugs and scoots over, patting the bed. Hikaru climbs up beside him and allows Pavel to molest him scientifically, both of Pavel's hands traveling all over Hikaru's body, taking inventory.   
  
"I think this medicine will last," Pavel says. "Your injuries will not return."   
  
"Well, if it doesn't, McCoy can fix me up again." Hikaru gives McCoy another look of gratitude, which McCoy pretends to miss. He makes himself scarce a few minutes later, and the specialist follows him out.   
  
"You can kiss me now," Pavel whispers when they lie down on the bed together, appreciating hands more than most people as they stroke each other's sides, faces, arms, everything. Hikaru helps Pavel break in his new tongue, tasting it again and again, until he imagines he can discern a slight difference in the texture. This one is smoother, more wet, but like the old one, it feels so fucking good against Hikaru's.   
  
"It doesn't matter if I can't see," Pavel says. "It would just be a challenge, really, and I feel that I would rise to it."  
  
"Of course you would. And you wouldn't have to watch me age."  
  
"Yes, I have thought of this as well! Though I will be able to see it, Hikaru, with my fingers. Your wrinkles, I'll touch them."   
  
"You'll touch my wrinkles?" Hikaru laughs, then feels guilty for already being so happy. "You should have taken that medicine yourself. You needed it more. I shouldn't have let you --"  
  
"No, no, Hikaru, the plan was always to have you drink the medicine. I am faster, yes, but with the weight of you bearing down on me we would have been caught again before our chips could be tracked. Speaking of chips, do you think the life support monitors were still working while the locational frequency was blocked? The poor ensign who was monitoring us, the places his imagination must have gone! I'm sure whatever everyone pictured was much worse than what actually happened. The Lazians have never been very creative, I'd rate their torture even below the horror level of the Klingons, based on what I have read about their treatment of prisoners. Do you think we'll be invited to speak at lectures on Lazian culture? Few humans have ever encountered them on the scale that we did and I wonder if you are the only human ever to use their particular brand of medicine, which if you ask me warrants a proper study, though I would hate to see you become a lab rat for this. But still, such technology! I think I might try for a grant from the Academy to study this, that way you would be only _my_ lab rat, and of course I would very gentle with you."   
  
Pavel smiles, and Hikaru can see his eyes, he can still see them, the way his lashes would flutter slightly as the pale green of his irises lit up, all of his careful posturing disappearing into something simple and true. It is amazing, he was right.  
  
McCoy unwinds the bandage around Pavel's eyes several hours later, and there they are, just as Hikaru saw them even with the bandage in place, blinking against the light and then focusing on Hikaru, changing with his smile. Early in the five-year mission, Kirk made some reproachful comment to Hikaru on the bridge, and when Kirk's back was turned Pavel looked over at him and smiled as if to say, _Hey, don't worry about it_ , and _Kirk, can you believe him sometimes?_ and _Well, I still like you, so it's okay_. His eyes do more talking than his tongue ever has, and Pavel might have been okay without them, but the rest of the world would have been different, less.   
  
"I was worried," Pavel admits, then his new eyes fill with tears, and he laughs.  
  
*  
  
Two years later, the events on Laz seem as real to them as Pavel's folk tale. Hikaru forgets to appreciate his leg, Pavel his tongue, both of them their hands. Neither of them quite forgets what it was like to lose Pavel's eyes, but in hindsight it's easy to feel as if they were certain they would be restored. Hikaru sees subtle differences sometimes, but Pavel's eyes are really just a window into the unchanging light inside him, and so they serve their purpose just as they always did, even if the one on the left is a bit more blue than green this time around.   
  
Hikaru doesn't take up running with his new leg, though early on he does join Pavel for a few workouts. Pavel only comes to the greenhouse for juiced fruits and vegetables once, and is unable to keep from making a face when he drinks the concoction Hikaru makes for him. He switches back to the sugary electrolyte drinks he loves after that, and only visits the greenhouse to hang on Hikaru's shoulders and distract him by chattering in his ear.   
  
They were not allowed to have their therapy together, but they were both excused from post-traumatic counseling after a month of twice-weekly sessions. It was actually noted, on both of their charts, that being in love with each other helped them through the ordeal immeasurably. The only time Hikaru actually shed tears about the events on Laz was when Chapel laughed and mentioned this while going over his chart during a routine exam.  
  
He and Pavel don't talk about it much, and they go on away missions when they are assigned to them, but they never volunteer anymore. When one of them comes back from a mission he completed without the other, they always spend their first off-shift hours together hiding under the blankets in their bed, no sex, just clinging and soft kisses, maybe some muttering. They are a little damaged and they know it, but it's not just a senseless battle scar. When those soft kisses intensify under their blankets and Pavel begins to moan into Hikaru's mouth, the feeling that shoots up Hikaru's spine, like being inside Pavel is the best and most important thing he'll ever do, is something they both paid for. They went through hell, but it means he knows exactly how much it's all worth, every little gasp and the flutter of those perfect eyelashes as Pavel liquefies in his hands, and the crushing grip of Pavel's strong legs as he holds Hikaru onto him. They both know how close they came to never having this.   
  
These, however, are just the epic post-mission fucks. More often, they have sex without sparing a thought for the sacredness of their intimacy and the fragility of life: Pavel against the wall, saying filthy things in Russian and English, Hikaru on his knees in the shower before their shift, moaning around Pavel's cock, or the two of them in Hikaru's desk chair, which they've broken twice, both times when they were pretending they were on the bridge during shift, overcome by sudden sex pollen.   
  
They fight, forget anniversaries, and need to escape each other at moments, Hikaru fleeing to the botany lab when Pavel starts monologuing and Pavel slipping out for a run when Hikaru's taste in music offends him. Little disagreements are forgiven easily, and maybe they have no interest in holding petty grudges because of what they've been through, but maybe they would have been like this anyway, Pavel always ready to bound into Hikaru's arms while he's still sweaty from his run, and Hikaru quickly growing bored in the quiet of the lab, missing Pavel's voice.  
  
They get on with their lives, as Pavel knew they would, and as Hikaru's nightmares fade he can imagine a time when they won't think about Laz at all.   
  
One night Hikaru wakes up in bed with Pavel, his mouth dry enough to warrant getting up and going to the bathroom for a glass of water. He crawls over Pavel, who is sleeping so deeply that he's not even snoring, and walks to the bathroom. They have a tiny window on space and the glow from the planet they're orbiting is enough to give him an idea of where things are, so he doesn't put on any lights. He walks back to the bed, gulping water, and sits on the edge beside Pavel to finish the glass, not awake enough to be thinking about anything in particular, except that he's thirsty and tired and ready to fold himself around Pavel and sink back into sleep.   
  
He's been staring at the boots for a full twenty seconds before he really sees them, there by the door, his just slightly larger than Pavel's, and neater, more carefully polished. The top of Pavel's left boot is bent over and touching Hikaru's right one. Something about this takes the air from Hikaru's lungs for a moment, and then he remembers being in that cell on Laz, wishing that someday their boots could sit by the door just like this, because it would mean everything was perfect, in place, as it should be. Here inside the fantasy, safe and sound, nothing is as perfect as he dreamed it would be: Pavel is ambitious and Hikaru worries that he'll want his own ship, Hikaru wants a baby someday and he's afraid to tell Pavel so, and they've got their inventory shift in the engine room coming up tomorrow, something they've both been dreading. But when they came off of shift tonight they stood by the door and Hikaru watched Pavel hop on one foot as he unzipped his boot, talking about something or other, Hikaru not really listening as he took off his own boots, not even remotely thinking about what he was doing, what was happening. His dream was coming true. It always is, all the time.   
  
He sets the empty glass on the bedside table and stretches out on top of Pavel, who moans. Hikaru nuzzles at the back of Pavel's neck and takes a deep breath full of the smell of him, remembering when his skin smelled like blood and the cold metal of that vent. Now it smells like the sex they had before bed, and the cinnamon buns Pavel ate after dinner. Five of them; he's insatiable.   
  
"What's wrong?" Pavel mumbles into his pillow, shifting, annoyed.   
  
"Nothing," Hikaru says, and he knows the feeling will pass, but in the moment it's true, nothing is wrong, everything is perfect. He reaches down to hold Pavel's hand, and it takes him a couple of seconds to work out which one he's holding, original or restored. Pavel's fingers wind through Hikaru's and he sighs as if to tell Hikaru to get over it, stop being sentimental, go back to sleep. Hikaru closes his eyes. He learned long ago that sometimes it's best just to do as Pavel wishes.


End file.
